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Wednesday, March 01, 2006

In the morning when I do my meditations there is a particular meditation that I perform along with The Pattern on the Trestleboard and The Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismigestus. It doesn’t have a name except to be called Meditation #1 from the book “The Way to the Kingdom”. If you are the curious sort you can find out that the book’s author is Joseph Bremer about whom not much is known. If you were to define him you would probably call him a Christian mystic. Long ago I memorized these meditations and, as has sometimes been the case, should I lose my way or cease to perform them for some stretch of time I still remember them long after when I return to them again. They are not short meditations. I guess it goes to show that you can make them a living part of you by repeated performance. I’m not suggesting that the totality of these things lives in me at this time, they do not. It is my intention that they someday shall.

As you read this mediation; Meditation #1, pay close attention to the impact of it on your thinking process. The person who turned me on to this meditation attempted to do so for a long time before I gave them the opportunity. She was persistent and she finally caught me in a receptive frame of mind. I am eternally grateful to her. From the moment I began reading it, it captured my attention completely and I was at the same time able to see the effect it was having on my awareness. As I read it I could feel the pinging of the truth in every word. It soon became a regular companion of mine. If you are of a similar nature I hope that you will gain from it some of the profound good it has visited upon me.

Meditation #1

“In the one mind there is the consciousness only, of wholeness, completion and perfection. In it there are no ideas of lack or limitation of supply of any kind. To every center of that mind, and every human mind is such a center, there flows naturally every needed idea, even as air rushes into a vacuum or as the blood carries to every cell of the body, everything needed for its growth and its sustenance.

Remember that mind is in you, is your mind as there is only one mind. Also remember by your realization of this great truth and by making it the dominant fact in your consciousness are you and your father made truly one, for it unites your consciousness with his consciousness; he who is your real self and whose mind is the only mind. Of course it does for you are then in his consciousness and all that he is you are and all that he has is yours. Once believe this, once know this and you will be free from all lack and limitation forever. Be still my child and know that I am your life, your health, your strength your power, your understanding and your love. I am all of these things you are seeking to be and to have. Can you not see my child that you can have none of these things apart from me, can get none of these things without getting me and can get them nowhere else except from me, your real, your perfect self? ...who am all these things now and therefore you are these things now and forevermore.

Be still my child and know the truth of yourself. Come unto me all ye who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest. Can you not see than any portion of health or strength or power or love or understanding that you have is not of yourself but is of me who am all of these things in you? Then why not have done with your foolish, anxious striving to be what you already are, always were and always will be in supreme fullness and perfection, why not then let go completely and let me, your real, your perfect self hold full sway in your consciousness; letting therein no thoughts you know are not my thoughts. This is all you need do, I will do the rest. Beloved if you thus abide in me and let this my word abide in you all that your heart seeketh will surely come to pass in blessed richness and abundance.”

NOTE: There may be a phrase or a word askew here or there. It is very different to perform the meditation than it is to write it down; something changes in the dynamics. I gave someone my copy of the book and haven’t gotten another in quite awhile. I never seem to be able to keep a copy of that book for any great length of time

It appears, according to the author, that there is only one mind and that we all, in our perception of ourselves as individuals, touch upon it at a particular point. He also seems to be saying that if we would recognize this great truth and make it the dominant fact within us that something very powerful would result. If the ocean were God then we would be sea creatures, appearing distinct from the waters around us but very much a part of it, born out of it and absorbed back into it. Some fish swim in large schools and some in small. Some fish swim alone. It’s been said that there is safety in numbers. The reverse is observably true as well. This is one of the reasons that everything which is said can also be contradicted. Do we gain truth in contradiction? In other words, when we set ourselves apart for the purpose of definition, do we find the ultimate as a result of our efforts? Can we find the ultimate without being absorbed in it?

The particular point at which we touch the totality is the definition of our personal state in relation to it. It is that part of the elephant that the blind man is touching that explains to him what the elephant is. For myself it means that we cannot know the elephant, which is smaller than a mountain and much smaller than the planet and infinitesimal compared to the solar system and the galaxy. Then how can we know God who not only composes the whole of it but it far more than that and which cannot be seen? We can’t know it but we try; possibly the answers lies in the idea that it knows us and if we can know that then something wonderful takes place.

The part of ourselves which is God is apart for one reason. It is apart that it might come to an understanding regarding the whole, and that wisdom will be the result. When we “let go and let me, your real and perfect self have full sway within you” then it doesn’t much matter what we know. It knows. It seems so simple and at the same time impossible to accomplish. How do you dance with God? How do you know when it is God you are dancing with and listening to? Why do dervishes spin in circles? It has something to do with a spiral.

In all this time we have seen some marvelous examples in the lives of those who have considered these things. They have told us things and demonstrated things but we don’t comprehend them. Immediately afterwards the mind has gone off again on its business; whatever business that illusion of a personal mind thinks that it has.

“Then why not have done with your foolish anxious striving to be what you already are, always were and always will be, in supreme fullness and perfection, why not then let go completely and let me you real your perfect self have full sway in your consciousness letting therein no thoughts you know are not my thoughts. This is all you need do, I will do the rest.” Our striving to be what we already are... letting therein no thoughts that you know are not my thoughts... How much is contained in that. From this we can understand the humility of the wise and the exhortation to become as little children. Faith appears to be a major key. It is what we have faith in that sets our course of action and defines us in our passage through. It is our faith and lack of faith that determines the success of our pursuit. What pursuit should a person engage in, seeing that they are dying even as they live; that they begin to disappear as soon as they arrive? It gives meaning to the phrase, “The proper study of mankind is man.” So what are all of these other people doing? What are all of these ills and misfortunes that are repeating themselves? Why is the enemy of our study the environment in which we are forced to learn, or in which we ignore everything outside the field of our momentary interest? Why should we feel that if we do not plot and scheme and push and do battle that we will not attain or gain what we desire?

It is said that it is God’s good pleasure to grant you the kingdom; faith again, faith and the lack of faith in respect of all of these things. We do not believe that these things should be ours and in some cases when we make them ours they destroy us. But can we be destroyed? Time passes, or seems to. When will we find the moment to make the single adjustment we need to make and let the rest take care of itself?

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comments:

Anonymous
said...

I picked up this book about a year ago at your recommendation and found the whole thing to be very powerful. I've done quite a bit of reading on spirituality but had never come across anything quite like that.

What a beautiful thing to wake up to. Thank you Les. My enjoyment of G-d intoxication over many years still doesn't get the point across to an hypnotized collective.

To answer your question;

"How do you dance with God? How do you know when it is God you are dancing with and listening to?"

Abraham Heschel, in G-d in Search of Man, speaks of man in terms of 'halacha' and 'agada', or law and spontaneity. This man has penetrated to the center as few people have done.

We need a science relating to the manner by which the ineffable comes into manifestation. You are doing this work, yet your/our resonance patterns are not yet defined by an effective system for understanding.

Someone recently asked me why I ever came to associate Appolonius with Jesus, never having met him and knowing little about him. I replied first that it had to do with the posts he was making before he left BOTF around the time of the last presidential election - that some of those posts exhibited a mastery of lyrical parable and expression of spiritual thought within parable that rivalled anything you can find in the King James gospels. And further, that I had never read anything else which occasioned the same reaction in me.

Of course, another reason is that around that time, I was toying with the idea of the "2nd Coming" being an intrinsically foolish idea which contradicts the evidence that Jesus has in fact come back to each generation, been crucifed in each generation, and will continue to return in each generation for another crucifxion until some future generation finally gets it right. And Appolonius' treatment by certain fray Pharisees certainly lent some psychological likelihood to this idea.

In any event, I want to focus here on the notion of "prophet" itself and how it may have arisen in the course of our specie's earliest experience with the circumstances that drove it to acquire language.

There must, originally, have been those who could somehow make others see things not before their eyes. As a metaphor for this ability, I have often used the dance which the honey-bee does on the wall of his hive, after he returns from having found a new stash of clover. In this dance, the honey-bee literally makes his fellows see the direction of the new stash, something which is not immediately present to their eyes.

Those of our forebears who originally had this ability must have been the ones who unwittingly created and fostered the drive toward language, inasmuch as the ability to get people to see things not before their eyes (a source of water, of food, of safety) would have been an ability promoted by the processes of natural selection. Groups which did not have such figures, which did not have The-Ones-Who-Can-Make-Us-See, would have been at a competitive disadvantage compared to groups which did, inasmuch as the latter would get to the food, the water, and the safety first.

And equally or more importantly, would know the presence of danger first.

Now it seems reasonable to suppose that as the very act of survival became easier for our forebears, the need for The-One-Who-Can-Make-Us-See became less dire. But by that time the die had been cast - social organizations and customs and roles had been predicated for many generations on the assumption that the tribe would always need and be helped by "The-One-Who-Can-Make-Us-See".

And so, figures such as Jeremiah arise in history, who were first hated, then revered, because they tried to make people see unpleasant things not immediately before their eyes - in Jeremiah's case, his people's impending punishment by a wrathful God.

"How do you dance with God? How do you know when it is God you are dancing with and listening to?"

It can be disconserting to notice that very few people are 'dancing with G-d' even when they try to orient their lives this way. My Aunt passed last week, she was a clogger for Christ, quite devoted,with many people at the funeral. Long story short, she was small minded, shrill, and more deluded than most. Truth be told these are systemic elements that inhibit our 'dancing with G-d, not just hers but surely mine also.

While the direction of our focus determines the nature of our experience, when we focus on misidentified objects, we may then be saying one thing and be doing something quite different.

So we need better criteria for identifying the nature of the objects of our experience.

Well a friend emailed this link to me and I want you to know that I love you. I don't follow any faith or creed but I have loved Gonesh and the Virgin Mary since my 20's when both showed up in my psyche to initiate some deep healing needed after my youthful battles with the patriarchy. I pray to each alternately depending on where I am. During one period I was gifted to see rats at play, even heard them talking among themselves kept the experience secret since most sophisticated Americans are not ready for rat stories. Learned years later that they are Gonesh's companions and thought oh yes!

Wonderful to hear from you. I came back here to see where I had mentioned Ganesh, because I didn't think I had. The reason being that I had some very powerful experiences with Ganesha recently but I didn't think I'd said anything. It's one of the reasons I haven't added to this blog in some time. I'm still thinking about what to say and waiting for whoever is going to say it.

So you just mentioned him out of the blue from a personal reference. That's interesting.

Thanks for your comment and love all round. One thing for sure, we know there's more where that came from.